Xmas Movie Review: Saint Nick (2010)

Monday

Dec 17, 2012 at 10:27 PMDec 18, 2012 at 12:13 PM

This holiday season, cuddle up with a heartwarming story of Saint Nick, known the world over as a murderous ex-bishop who returns each year to seek revenge on no one in particular. Vrolijk Kerstfeest, everyone.

Todd Kuhns

It's never too late to add to your family's canon of traditional Christmas classics. After you've slogged through Charlie Brown's Christmas, The Santa Clause, Home Alone and those stop-motion Rudolph movies a few million times, you're probably dying for something new and different.

Enter the Dutch, rushing to the task with a new holiday classic bold enough to reveal the truth about Santa: He was an evil excommunicated bishop who rode a horse from house to house, slaughtering children, burning buildings and owning a large schooner.

Parents eventually tired of the holiday festivities (don't we all?) and hunted him and his minions down, setting them ablaze with the fires of justice.

Naturally the legend softened over time. But every 32 years or so, when a full moon falls on Christmas Day, Santa suddenly remembers how it all went down, sets the toys aside and returns to his serial killer roots. At least if you live in Amsterdam.

Your children will love learning how other cultures celebrate the holidays. One of the opening sequences follows an lighthearted classroom gift exchange in the Dutch tradition, where one girl receives an "adult novelty device" and a boy gets a box of his stuff back from his ex-girlfriend, who also reads a poem insulting his manhood in front of the class. I learned from Google that Dutch gift-giving tradition sometimes calls for gag gifts accompanied by harsh put-down poems. Wacky sense of humor, those guys.

And then there's the blackface. Again, Google reveals that Sinterklaas's traditional helper is Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). He's portrayed here by a couple white college kids rubbing shoe polish onto their faces like it's 1940 to accompany their Santa-dressed companion to an orphanage or something.

They never do get there because this is one of those unfortunate years previously described. Sinterklaas wreaks a havoc across the city in his Freddy Krueger makeup, though his own merry band of pirate Black Petes carry out most of the shenanigans, now as charred zombies. Get it? Get it?

It's tough to give this subject matter the full Irving Berlin treatment, so the film toes that line between over-the-top spilled guts horror and dark comedy that's all the rage these days. Unfortunately, it also toes the line between boring and confusing. The simplistic and sometimes juvenile jokes reminded me of a bad American sitcom, though I still found a few nuggets of subtlety and understatement to laugh at. I imagine much remained lost in translation.

We see far more of St. Nick's evil minions than the fat man himself. When he does show up, he truly intimidates. You wouldn't want to light a fire in this guy's chimney. The most energetic and fun sequences are when he rides his snorting hell horse across the rooftops with impressive special effects. He's also learned some pretty nasty moves with his sharpened S-shaped bishop's staff. I expected to see much more of this stuff, but instead we get mostly talking, stalking and car chases.

Even with the best Christmas film concept, writer/director Dick Maas let me down. I couldn't detect an overarching goal here or some specific deed Evil Santa was trying to accomplish. For all his genuine fearsomeness, there's no worldwide plot to foil, no gates of hell to open, no unexpected plot twists. The real threat stays confined to a handful of unfortunate folks who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You'll get enough paint-by-numbers dialogue and set pieces to remind you how hard it's trying to be Hollywood.

No matter. High production values, impressive effects and clever cinematography kept the picture interesting enough for me. I enjoyed the creative visual transitions, constantly moving camera and a few impressive long shots. The murders channeled those old 80's slasher films, which always found creative ways to dispatch its victims. There's more gore than your average Christmas film - gross, funny at times, but not the ultra-graphic stuff of Dead Snow or today's "torture porn" flicks.

I had high hopes the payoff at the end would be worth it. Unfortunately, it's anti-climactic and confusing. You can't kill a legend, so the best you can hope for is wait him out until morning - and when that 32 year cycle comes around again, consider jingling all the way to a safer country like Nigeria or Detroit.

And if you've been REALLY good this year, Hendrick, Santa will pass us by.